


Fate: Core side story, Megolovania plays in the distance

by Mamshiba101



Category: Fate (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Cyberpunk, Dark Comedy, Gen, Original Character(s), Post-Apocalypse, tabletop novelized
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27306595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mamshiba101/pseuds/Mamshiba101
Summary: A side story of user RachelTheHero's novelization of our Fate: Core campaign starring my character, Andy Caslin. How did Andy end up at the Cyber Denny's that fateful morning? Well, he had a hell of a night.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1
Collections: Fate: The Marvelous Journey of a Bunch of Idiots





	Fate: Core side story, Megolovania plays in the distance

**Author's Note:**

> Like the description says, this is a side story I wrote based off of a campaign of Fate: Core me and my friends are doing. User RachelTheHero has been writing a novelized version of our sessions on her account (as well as some content for Fire Emblem: Three houses) so you should probably read through at least the first chapter before reading this for more context on the character/world, as this takes place the day before. Enjoy!

Andy woke up to the sound of his neighbors muffled yelling from next door. He shot a quick glance at the clock sitting beside his mattress and let out a long sigh before turning his gaze up towards the ceiling. 

It's not like it was any of his business, but did they really have to pull this shit at 8AM? It was the third time that week that he’d been unceremoniously woken up by the duo and it was really starting to chip away at his patience (and sleep). He wished the two would just break up or kill eachother already so he could get some peace and quiet. Regardless, he wasn't going to get back to sleep now with the two of them still going at it like that, so he resigned himself to being awake.

His next-door neighbors moved in about six months back, and seemed fine enough at first, that being until the first night Andy was actually home after they moved in, where he found himself audience to one of their petty arguments until about 4 in the morning. The pair -he hesitated to call them a couple given how much they seemed to hate eachother- got into full on screaming matches regularly about pretty much anything, it was honestly a wonder that neither of them had killed the other yet given how violent some of their “lovers quarrels” were. 

He rubbed at his one real eye and put on his eye patch before getting out of bed, his stomach leading him to the cabinets on the other side of the room. 

A quick glance through said cabinets didn't yield much unfortunately, only half a moldy loaf of bread and a few cans of beans, although it's not like he expected to find much else. He’d had shitty luck in finding work for the past few weeks; his handful of regular employers hadn't contacted him with any new jobs and despite his efforts, snooping around for someone in need of his ‘expertise’ hadn't been fruitful either. He spent the night before camped out in one of firsts’ more shady bars in hopes of finding some kind of lead to follow but only got some watery booze in return. 

Normally, he would have made some strides to pickpocket some of the more drunk patrons while they were leaving, but he already had a bit of a poor reputation at that bar, aka he had been caught there a few times and had subsequently been beaten up and thrown out. He didn't have the budget right now to pay for any medical supplies or the time to let his potential injuries heal, so he decided it would be better not to chance it. Not to mention, crawling back to Sal and getting help from him should he get injured was less than ideal; he didn't want to be more in the man’s debt than he already was and was pretty sure he would actually shoot himself if he had to sit through another poker game with him and his buddies anytime in the near future. 

After trying and failing to get his stovetop to start a few times, Andy gave up and cracked open one of the cans of beans, eating it room temperature. Despite First being one of the better off hubs of the area- not that he'd know from experience, given the fact that he hadn't strayed farther than the outskirts of the city in 15 years- commodities like plumbing, heating and gas (among many others) occasionally chose to just shit the bucket for no reason on some days, especially in some of the more “economically lacking” areas, and today seemed to be one of those days. 

Andy went to the box beside his bed and unlocked it to check on his prospects, finding that he, at this point in time, only had a grand total of $9 to his name. Fan-fucking-tastic. He had to find some kind of job, and fast. 

He figured he ought to get out there sooner rather than later, quickly putting on a pair of pants, his boots and his green cargo jacket before leaving his apartment, hoping his luck would take a turn for the better. 

~ 

Four hours later, his luck was still as finicky as ever. He was wandering around the slums of First, occasionally stopping into stores to eavesdrop, trying to see what he could gleam from miscellaneous conversations. At this point he was ready to just go after odd jobs, the pay was shit but at least he could get some cash that way. 

Focusing in front of him, Andy noticed that the stranger he was walking behind had quite a large bulge in his back pocket. The man apparently wasn't bright, considering he was letting his wallet be so exposed in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, a few years ago Andy would’ve already grabbed the guy’s wallet and been halfway home, but he liked to think that he’d gained some standards over the years (minus when the situation was too easy for him not to). It was tempting though, considering his current financial situation. He’d like to think that he wasn't quite desperate enough to turn back to full time pickpocketing yet. Although, old habits die hard….

Andy was jolted out of his musings (and out of committing petty theft) by a figure who suddenly appeared beside him. Giving the figure a sideways glance, he saw they were a tall man wearing a suit way too clean for the area they were walking in. The man was walking a little too close and was a little too purposefully keeping pace with him for his comfort. Andy tried to get a read of his face, but was prevented by a pair of black sunglasses. Overall, the man seemed overwhelmingly suspicious, but against his better judgement, Andy continued walking as if nothing had happened and waited for the man to speak first. 

“Mister Caslin, I presume?” The man in black said, still looking forward. 

“Who’s asking?” Andy replied, also avoiding looking at the other

“My employer. He asked me to offer you a…….business endeavor.” 

“I'm listening” 

“Good. Shall we continue this conversation elsewhere?” 

“Lead the way” 

~ 

The man in the suit brought him to a nearby restaurant, staying mostly silent the way there. The place was rather busy but the man got the two of them in immediately, and both now sat across from eachother in a booth towards the back of the dining area.

“So, what’s this ‘business endeavor’ you were talking about?” Andy said, breaking the silence that had stayed between the two

“Well, my employer is in need of help you see; He has been searching for a certain item for a number of years, and has just recently found it, though in the possession of someone else. He requires someone of your...talents to help him acquire it.” 

“So you're asking me to steal it?” 

“Yes. My employer prefers not to get his hands dirty, so naturally, he’s been using the service of people such as yourself to avoid openly doing anything incriminating, so to speak.” 

“Do I get to know who this ‘employer’ is?” 

The man in black clicked his tongue disapprovingly “Im afraid you aren’t permitted to know that information, my employer is a rather private person who would rather not be associated with this kind of work, although you can have my card.” 

The man pulled a business card out of his suit pocket and handed it to Andy. He didn’t even know people still used business cards, formality wasn’t a very common thing in the apocalypse. It read “Samuel Kelly - Secretary, bodyguard & chauffeur” in flowery font that made it almost difficult to read. It looked like it was professionally printed, which was even less common than receiving a business card in the first place. 

Andy had no fucking clue who in First even made these anymore, which meant that this guy was either loaded enough to commission someone to make them, or that he did buisness somewhere outside of First City. Either way, it wasn't really his place to mentally debate the shadiness of this guy when he was currently offering him his first real job in weeks; He’d save worrying about who he was working for until after he had enough money to get back to his normal standard of living. 

“Alright, what is it you want me to steal?” 

Kelly reached into his suit jacket, pulling out several pictures and pieces of paper from his inside pocket before flipping them around and pushing them towards Andy

“This is the item my employer wants” the man said, gesturing to the top image. It was a little blurry, like it was taken from far away and zoomed in. Despite this though, Andy could still make out the object itself, it appeared to be a feminine figure, almost like some kind of statue, held in a tightly sealed glass box. He wasn't exactly sure what it was, but it was probably a relic of the old world. It made enough sense, people who were alive long before the start of the apocalypse often went to pretty ridiculous lengths to regain formerly commonplace items, petty theft was nothing compared to what he’d heard of some people doing.

“As I said, my employer has had his eye on this particular item for quite a long time; he found it recently in an auction but he was outbid by a Mr. Peter Bromden, who is now in possession of it.” the man flipped over to the next image, a large and rather bougie looking apartment building, before continuing. 

“Your task, should you agree to it, will be to break into Mr. Bromden’s home, on the 9th floor of this building here” he pointed to an area about two floors shy of the top of the building. “You will locate the item, leave his home and then meet me at a secure location about a mile away from here. I’ll be waiting on a bench in Hyde park, near the gazebo.” 

“Sounds easy enough” He’d done plenty of theft jobs before and this one seemed surprisingly straightforward. 

“I wouldn't get too sure of yourself if I were you. The others were confident too and things didn't exactly work out for them….” The man tapered off, seemingly reluctant to continue. 

“Wait wait wait, hold up.” Andy sat up, leaning towards the man opposite him “The others??” 

“Ah, yes, well, how do I put this…..I figure you should probably know…...you weren't exactly our first choice, we sought out the services of three other individuals prior, but all three were unsuccessful.”

“What do you mean ‘unsuccessful?” This job was looking shadier by the minute. 

“Well, the first man we employed was found beaten to death in an alleyway near to the building, the second lost an arm trying to escape Bromden’s residence and the third has seemingly disappeared without a trace, do keep an eye out for him should he still be alive.” The man said, retaining his calm demeanor. 

Well, that was encouraging. Andy wasn’t exactly a stranger to overwhelmingly dangerous work, such as the run in he had with the eight hands a while back, but he still didn’t enjoy it all that much. He wasn’t very keen on the idea of dying or of getting seriously wounded funnily enough. However, he was pretty desperate at this point. In the end, it all came down to one big question. 

“How much am I getting paid for this?”

“Ah, a good question, although I’m afraid I can’t quite say” 

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” 

“Well, your payment for this job is dependent on you really. Your mission is to just retrieve the item my employer wants, but given Bromden’s wealth you can imagine the other riches he’s keeping with it. A duffel bag will be provided for you to transport the item in, so long as it is there whatever other items you can fit in will be yours to keep and sell off to your heart’s content. We aren’t personally guaranteeing you any sum of money, but should you be skilled enough you can earn yourself ten times more than what you would normally be paid.” 

Now that was certainly an offer. If he could manage to actually pull it off, he could be set for weeks, hell maybe months; he could finally fix up his apartment, eat three times a day, maybe get himself a new eyepatch, or even a new bio implant eye, one that actually works!- but he was getting ahead of himself. Whether or not he got paid at all would depend on whether or not he stole the mysterious item (and managed to get out of Bromden’s seemingly cursed home in one piece). Andy liked to think that he was a competent criminal but he still acknowledged that this job was probably going to be more difficult for him than he initially thought. 

Despite all the clear red flags raised by everything the man in black said, Andy found himself more than a little tempted to take the job. After all, it took this long for him to even get an offer, who’s to say it wouldn’t take just as long, or longer for him to get another deal this promising? It was his good luck that led this man to encounter him (or more likely his bad luck, but he chose to ignore that possibility) so he should take advantage of the opportunity if he didn’t want to put himself into a desperate situation. 

After giving Andy a minute or so to consider, Kelly spoke “So, do we have a deal?” 

“Only if you pay for lunch” 

“Fair enough. So it’s an agreement. The duffel will be provided for you after we leave this restaurant. Our intel has informed us that Bromden will be leaving his home tonight at around 10 P.M to attend an auction, you should have at least two hours worth of safe time to do your work while he is gone.” He gathered the documents on the table and pushed them towards Andy before continuing. “I will be waiting in Hyde park for you to deliver the bag to me, at which time I will take the item my employer seeks and the remainder of whatever you were able to loot will be returned to you and we will part ways. Am I clear?”

“As crystal.”

“Oh, and one more thing, try to watch out for the security system, Bromden has a team of guards that will be called should it go off” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

With that, the two sat in relative silence as their food was served, eaten and paid for. As Kelly said, a large grey duffle bag was promptly given to Andy after they left the restaurant, with a short “I’ll be waiting” before the mysterious man walked off. 

Andy gave the bag a quick once over, checking that nothing shady had been done to it before deeming it safe and starting off on his walk home in the opposite direction.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to split the story up into a few chapters, there will be at least 2 more after this one. I've written this story on and off for a year or so, so the formatting isn't great and its not as consistent as I'd like but I'm hoping to post the next chapter once I finish up the one before. 
> 
> For context, bio implants are a thing that exist in this world, and they're like a cross between automail from FMA and hyper futuristic technology. They can replace various body parts and have technological advantages over normal body parts, but often at a price. Andy's left eye is a bio implant he got after losing it a number of years prior, but it's a faulty one that causes him pain if he uses it for too long.


End file.
